Beware of evil weevils

A pest found in Broward County is attacking Florida's bromeliads.

A single rose-colored bloom in a New York florist shop 20 years ago inspired the collection of 300 bromeliads at the Hollywood home of Jose and Sara Donayre.

The tantalizing flower intrigued Jose so much that he paid $65 to bring it home to Sara for Mother's Day. When the couple moved to Florida in 1993, they found the same plant for $7. The bargain purchase ignited their enthusiasm and the collection that Jose tends for three hours each afternoon, always on the alert for a destructive Mexican weevil.

Jose, a physician who worked with the United Nations Population Fund when they lived in New York, is president of the Bromeliad Society of Broward County. The Broward group is one of 12 that comprise the Florida Council of Bromeliad Societies, which recently had its annual extravaganza in Miami. Proceeds from the event's rare plant auction were earmarked for research to eradicate Metamasius callizona, the pest bromeliad enthusiasts call the evil weevil.

"They are voracious. It's more of a concern in the natural habitats, but if it is not controlled, they can invade your collection," said Jose. "So far, I've been very lucky. I haven't had it."

The council, researchers and homeowners are joining efforts to find a way to get rid of the pest discovered in Broward County in 1989 and tracked to bromeliads that entered from Mexico.

"I was in Easterlin Park in Broward in 1991," said Howard Frank, of the University of Florida Entomology and Nematology Department in Gainesville, the state's leading researcher on the weevil. "It was horrible. Piles of dead bromeliads were littering the parking lot."

In addition to Easterlin Park in Oakland Park, other natural areas in Broward County have been struck, including Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek, Tree Tops Park in Davie and Secret Woods in Dania Beach. Closer to Central Florida, the weevils were discovered in Brevard County in November 1998, Polk County in December 2000 and Osceola County in October 2003.

Frank saw damaged bromeliads in Castillo Hammock near Homestead in 1991, but weevils haven't been seen in Miami-Dade County since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

"The winds might have blown the weevils away, but I still can't explain it," Frank said. "I went back to Castillo Hammock in May 2006, and there are still bromeliads in the trees and they're healthy."

Bromeliads are epiphytes, or air plants, which grow on trees but don't damage them. And Florida has 16 species of native bromeliads.

"Weevils will take on 12 of those 16," Frank said.

The threat to native bromeliads has spurred collectors into action.

"Bromeliads are beautiful when they flower. Others are spectacular when they don't flower," said Ed Prince, of Miami, a collector for 25 years and chairman of this year's extravaganza hosted by the Bromeliad Society of South Florida.

"Bromeliads are like rabbits. You can't just have one," Prince said. "The thing that disturbs me is that we can potentially lose our bromeliad population if this weevil is left unfettered."

The weevil attack put the bromeliad community on the alert for wider concerns.

"It's really about the destruction of an entire ecosystem," said Ron Cave, a researcher at the University of Florida Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce.

"Bromeliads trap water when it rains," Cave said. "It's a cool environment for insects, frogs, snakes and spiders."

Cave and Frank are leading research on a fly from Honduras that apparently attacks only the destructive weevil.

Plans are for that fly, Lixadmontia franki, named for Howard Frank, to be released at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge once state and federal agencies give approval. The target date is January, Frank said.

"It's about the size of a housefly, but hairy, with very special feeding habits," Frank said. "The female flies will only put their larvae close to weevil larvae in bromeliads."

Bromeliads throughout the state are being protected through a seedling collection with data on where they were found.

"Hopefully, we'll have thousands of plants to reintroduce when the weevil problem is resolved," said Steve DeCresie, horticulturalist at the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford, which recently took over the seed collection project from Russell's Bromeliads.

Many bromeliads in Broward and Palm Beach counties already have been destroyed, leaving the weevil population more stable because it lacks the plant it needs for survival. But the remaining ones are hungry, Frank said.